Shadow Chapter 20
After updating the club on what happened at the Carters’, a few guys were dispatched to go through their house to see what they could find that would help us get everyone we needed to remove as part of the fighting rings.
Aubrielle had a suggestion that had stunned everyone, but it was a great idea and freaking poetic.
She even told us how to accomplish it. Once that was accomplished, I took Aubrielle to the house.
I hated to leave her alone while I went to the bunker. Mayhem solved that dilemma. He sent Astrid over to stay with her. I made Aubrielle promise to eat something. Astrid assured me she’d get her to eat.
My anticipation grew as I approached bunker one.
There were bikes and other vehicles parked outside.
Entering the building, I went to the bunker's hidden entrance. It had an electronic digital code lock with a keypad and a fingerprint scanner. If someone found the hidden door, they would have to enter the correct code and have their fingerprint on file in the system. If both weren’t processed, they’d be locked out, and an alert would be sent to Spawn’s computer.
Within seconds, I was through both, walking into the bunker and then into the section used as our prison and interrogation area.
Brothers were gathered there, talking. This area had been designed to the specifications of Crusher and Mayhem.
Six cells lined two of the walls. Down the middle of the room ran a track on the ceiling.
Multiple wheels with hooks attached ran on it.
They could be slid to wherever you wanted on the track.
In addition, the hooks could be lowered to whatever height you needed.
Manacles hung from each hook. It reminded me of the setups you saw in a slaughterhouse where they hung sides of beef, pigs, and more.
Within the cells, the four Carter men and Truce huddled.
Alisse and Kimera had patched up Rome to ensure he didn’t bleed out before he was no longer useful.
Truce had clearly regained consciousness.
He sat in his cell, glaring out at everyone.
However, when he saw me, the hatred in his gaze flared.
He stood and came to stand at the bars, wrapping his fists around them.
“Did you get Elle all settled?” Mayhem asked.
“Yeah, thanks for sending Astrid over.”
“Man, I didn’t send her. As soon as she knew we were headed here, she told me she would be with Elle. I said yes, ma’am, and got out of her way. I’m not crazy,” he grinned.
“I hear that,” Lash said.
The rest of us chuckled. Jonas remained at the clubhouse along with Gravel and Riot. Ratchet and Sandman covered Eden since Mayhem was here. That left Reaper, Ink, Maniac, Hail, Diesel, Ruckus, Fiasco, and me in the bunker.
“You’re dead,” Oliver snarled from his cage. I walked over to stare at him. He was in there with his brother. His sons were in another cell, and then Truce was all alone.
“Really. Care to explain how you see that? From where I stand, you’re the dead ones,” I replied.
“You won’t get away with this. We have friends. They know we were talking about a partnership with your club. We go missing, they’ll come after you,” he said smugly.
“Would you be referring to these friends?” Reaper asked as he approached.
He had a piece of paper in his hand. Pres rattled off names. As he did, I watched the color drain from Oliver’s face. His smugness was replaced by fear. When Reaper was finished, Oliver asked him hoarsely.
“H-how did you get those names?”
“Well, you remember our brother Spawn. You know him as our secretary, but he can find just about anything using a computer. Those emails he sent you to set up communication between us contained a virus. As soon as you opened them, he was into your computers and phones. What you don’t know is that we have friends who are gods in the hacker world who can do it.
They’re so fucking good, the US government uses them.
And guess what? Spawn is at your place right now, with a few others, tearing shit apart.
By the time they’re done, he’ll know every secret you ever had,” Pres told Oliver, smirking.
If anything, this news made Oliver turn green. Jock, Rome, and Jace didn’t look much better.
“We can work this out. We don’t have to go to extremes. We let things get heated tonight. Everything was fine until he came in and caused trouble,” Jock said. He jerked his head toward Truce when he said it.
“Yeah, Jock is right. We’re gonna be family through my daughter. You’re set to make good money with us.” Oliver switched his tune just like that.
“Come on, you can’t want to screw up a deal over Truce’s obsession with my sister,” Rome added.
“You fucking cowards. You encouraged me to pursue her. If I hadn’t listened to you and your stupid advice to wait, she would’ve been mine months ago,” Truce growled.
I focused my attention on him. “Let’s talk about you, Truce. Or should I call you Nataraja? You know, I looked up what that meant. You thought you were clever, choosing a name that paired with Aubrielle’s dance persona, Parvati, the Hindu goddess of dance.” I told him.
“What does it mean?” Ruckus asked.
“Nataraja means King of Dance. The Hindu god Shiva is depicted as a cosmic dancer performing the dance of bliss. It’s supposed to symbolize five key cosmic acts: grace, illusion, creation, preservation, and destruction.
It has something to do with Hinduism and the eternal cycle of life, death, and liberation. ”
“Wow, you memorized all that shit. I get it. The goddess of dance and the king of it would make an ideal pair. Too bad for him, Aubrielle has been your dancer since the moment you met her two years ago,” Mayhem remarked.
“She’s not meant to be his! I saw her first,” Truce shouted in indignation.
“No, you didn’t. Ellie told me she met you a year ago when you started fighting for Oliver,” I reminded him.
“I started fighting for Oliver then, but I noticed her three years ago. She was home in Big Stone Gap. I couldn’t ask her family about her, so I had no idea where she lived.
Someone told me that she no longer lived with her family.
I knew I had to find a way to get close to Oliver so I could find her.
It took two fucking years to accomplish it and get invited to fight.
From there, I built myself into a man she can rely on.
A man who will take care of her. She should’ve never been dancing in that fucking place, allowing others to see her.
She’s meant for my eyes only,” Truce ranted.
His thoughts on her not exposing herself to others and keeping her body for him alone were close to what I thought.
It made me a tad uncomfortable. Surely, I wasn’t an obsessed stalker.
Sure, I’d been attracted to Aubrielle from the beginning, but I hadn’t sent her secret stalker gifts or conspired to get close to her family to get to her.
“Did you know that’s why he fought for you?” Maniac asked Oliver.
Aubrielle’s dad stared at Truce as if he were seeing his prize fighter for the first time.
“Truce, you fucking worked for me only to get to my daughter?”
“Don’t pretend to be concerned, Oliver. You’ve never appreciated her, nor has your family ever tried to protect her.
All you saw was someone to keep under your thumb and force to pay so she could remain away from you.
You have no idea how many goddamn times I wanted to smash all your heads in. You make me sick,” the fighter spat.
“Hey, fuck you! We made you, man. If it weren’t for my family, you’d be a nobody fighting in some shithole gym. We helped to hone you,” Rome yelled back.
“Keep dreaming, Rome. If it wasn’t for your daddy paying you and your brother, and that worthless uncle of yours, you’d all be unemployed dickheads.
The only ones in your family with brains are your sister and dad, though Oliver has less than he thinks he does.
Aubrielle is the real thinker in your family,” Truce shot back.
We let them go at it. You could learn some valuable information if you let people tear each other down.
“You have no right to speak of our family like that,” Jock blustered.
“Oh, why don’t you shut up, Jock? You follow your brother like his pet.
You’ll never head up this family. He’ll leave it all to his sons.
And that daughter of yours is a piece of work.
She’s the biggest whore in the county. She deserves to work in that hellhole of a strip club she’s in.
She resents Aubrielle, but does nothing to better herself or to escape you,” Truce sneered.
I might dislike Truce and want to kill him for obsessing over my woman, but I had to agree with his observations.
He clearly saw the situation. I eased back from the cells and watched them shout back and forth.
Most of it was insults and nothing usable, but we didn’t interrupt.
As we listened, some of the names Reaper read off the list were mentioned.
They let tidbits about those individuals drop.
We didn’t worry about forgetting them. Before he left, Spawn had activated the microphones and cameras in here.
He’d have a record to refer back to. We let them run out of steam.
Once they did, we went back to asking our own questions.
Usually, when answers weren’t forthcoming, we resorted to persuasion, the bloody kind.
However, after speaking with Aubrielle before coming here, she’d told us something that made our typical methods seem like the wrong way to go.
The truth of the matter was that Oliver would know everything.
After him came Rome, then Jock, with Jace bringing up the end.
My woman said she seriously doubted that Truce would know much of anything useful, no matter that he’d been hanging out with her family.
Her dad didn’t trust people. Hell, he didn’t fully trust his own family with everything.